Scott Pruitt resigns from EPA

The senator was also a supporter of Pruitt, according to the Times, and Wheeler's rise demonstrates the growing influence of a group of former Inhofe staff members across the Trump administration and Washington including Ryan Jackson, who is now the EPA's chief of staff.

In a brief email to the agency's employees late Thursday after Trump announced Pruitt's departure, Wheeler thanked Pruitt "for his service and leadership".

Last month, while praising Pruitt's "fantastic job" at the EPA, the president admitted, "I'm not happy about certain things, I'll be honest". "We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright", Trump wrote.

During his confirmation hearing to be the EPA's deputy administrator, Wheeler was overshadowed by another Trump nominee, Kathleen Hartnett White - Wheeler's nomination was therefore under less scrutiny.

The agency is under numerous federal probes into its spending, ethics and policy decisions, CNBC reports.

A former Oklahoma attorney general reported to have close ties to fossil fuel industries, Pruitt had become the focus of multiple investigations in recent months, including by his own agency's inspector general, two other independent federal agencies and by Congress itself. It's still unclear. What we do know: His replacement, Andrew Wheeler, holds views similar to Pruitt's.

Under Pruitt, the EPA "rolled back punishing regulations that were hurting American workers and stifling our economy", Barrasso said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Pruittwas confronted at a D.C. restaurant by schoolteacher Kristin Mink, who listed several critiques of his work at the EPA and then asked him to resign. Inhofe expressed his support for his former staffer on Thursday, calling Wheeler "the flawless choice" to serve as acting EPA administrator.

"We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment", she says to him in the video.

Pallone said Wheeler won't make a difference at the agency.

Before taking the job at the EPA, Wheeler worked as an energy lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

"Pruitt abused power in a disgraceful way by using the job for perks and trying to enrich himself and his family", Hurlbut told GTM.

Wheeler was only marginally approved as EPA deputy in April. He went on to work as chief of staff to Sen.

In a year and half, Pruitt managed to squeeze in a staggering number of scandals, spending loads of taxpayer dollars on first-class flights, keeping a "secret calendar" to mask his meetings with industry representatives, and so much else.